Hieromonk Pimen Bărbieru
He came from a large family of believers from Matca, Tecuci. His father died on the front in the War of the Rebellion and his mother died of typhus.
Brought up by relatives, he entered monastic life and became abbot of the Cetățuia hermitage in Muscel. As a priest, he discovered in this ancient settlement the relics of the schemamonk Ioanichie, who went to the Lord in 1638.
Father Pimen has remained in the history of the Church as the priest who, in 1948, received the oath of the members of the anti-communist resistance group led by the Arnăuțoiu brothers. They swore on the Holy Gospel of Cetățuia that they would liberate the homeland and the nation “from the claws of the communist-Bolshevik beasts”.
Father Pimen helped them with food, logistics and accommodation. The communist authorities arrested him in 1948. In 1950 he was sentenced to 25 years’ hard labour. He was taken to Baia Sprie and Tg. Ocna, where he was one of the spiritual fathers of the prisoners. Released in 1964, he retired to the monastery of Cernica, at Sitaru, then as a confessor in Pasărea, where he was reunited with his sister, Mother Doroteea. He died in 1982.
(Adrian Nicolae Petcu – Ziarul Lumina)